The Mortgage Bankers Association does a National Delinquency Survey quarterly to track the percentage of home loans that are delinquent or in the foreclosure process. Their survey is reported on their website. I went back through a few years of their data and found the percentage figures for the delinquency rate, homes in foreclosure and then also figured the combined total. They count delinquency separate from homes in foreclosure. So a home that is delinquent is behind on payments but not yet in foreclosure. Homes in foreclosure are actually somewhere in the foreclosure process.
Here is how the trend looks over the past few years:
We're still in bad shape compared to back at the start of 2006. However the figures seemed to be leveling off and starting to drop.
In March 2006 the delinquent rate was 4.7% and 0.99% of homes were in foreclosure for a total of 5.69%. The figures peaked in the May 2010 report when delinquencies were 10.06% and foreclosure rate was 4.63% combining at 14.69%. In the most recent report from Nov. 2010 the rates were down to 9.31% and 4.39% for a total of 13.52%.
The change in the combined delinquency and foreclosure rates from quarter to quarter looks like this:
As you can see in the past two quarterly reports the combined percent of loans in foreclosure or delinquent dropped. From May 2010 to August 2010 the combined figures dropped 0.27% and then from August to November 2010 they dropped another 0.9%. Hopefully that trend continues.